


Leonard Betts

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [85]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen, MSR, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-02
Updated: 2015-11-02
Packaged: 2018-04-29 15:07:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5132075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	Leonard Betts

_“Mulder, I don’t know what you’re getting at, here. Regeneration of an entire body? I don’t know why I’m standing here listening to this.”  
“Because I think that the fiery crash that killed this man was a ruse, a decoy, and that this man here is actually still at large.”_

“I don’t… Mulder it’s just not--”

“Not possible? Just like it’s not possible for a man to kill five people and eat their livers and then hibernate for thirty years? Like it’s not possible for a man to live solely by stealing and consuming the fat of other people? Or their hormones and melanin? Come _on_ , Scully. How many times do we have to run into these kinds of evolutionary outliers before you accept that they are in fact absolutely possible?”

Her mouth was a thin line, arms crossed tightly in front of her chest, and Mulder knew that he was probably pushing too hard, but he had been trying, throughout the whole case, to leave her room for the skepticism she wore like a protective shell. They had worked together long enough now to have developed these routines, these little dances they did with each new investigation, where Mulder forged onward with whatever extreme theory he had, and Scully held back and looked for other explanations, and in general it served them well. He kept the momentum going while she caught things he failed to notice, and they were overall more successful for it. 

But in this moment, with the evidence of a fully-regenerated Betts lying there in front of them, and Scully still refusing to see the obvious, he was simply out of patience.

“Look, if I’m wrong, then Betts really is dead… again… and we don’t have anything to worry about. But Scully, if I’m right, and he’s still out there, damaged and desperate and newly regenerated, then he’s going to be even more dangerous than ever. And I can’t just walk away from that possibility. Not with what’s at stake.”

“And you think, what, that he’s going to start attacking cancer victims on the street?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. But I do know that he’s gone a very long time before now without being discovered, probably because his job gave him ready access to whatever he needed, and now in the last 24 hours he’s killed a man for his cancerous lung and a former coworker to protect his secret. He’s escalating out of desperation, and I believe that the pattern will continue, that he will do whatever it takes to survive.”

He watched her consider it, could see her thought process play out over her face as she weighed the possibilities and his theories against her own beliefs. He wondered if she had any idea how expressive she really was, how much her eyes gave away, especially when she was tired or frustrated. Or maybe it was just that he knew her so well, that what might be missed by anybody else was so completely apparent to him.

Finally she sighed, a weary droop to her shoulders, and nodded. “Okay, well, what do you want to do, then?”

“I think we should surveil the mother’s house. My gut says that’s how we’re going to find him, if indeed he’s still alive.” He watched her look over his shoulder at the clock and stifle a groan, and he smiled sympathetically. “Come on. Coffee’s on me.”


End file.
